Burials hui pushing for transfer of artifacts
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
A burials organization is applying pressure on the National Park Service to transfer five cultural items in the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park collection to Native Hawaiian ownership. The items were part of the collection the group reburied at Kawaihae Cave four years ago.
Advertiser library photo
An official with the park said yesterday that the service intends to "repatriate" items as required by federal native burials law and is preparing a written plan.
This wooden female figure is one of the five objects that a burials group wants the park service to return for reburial.
The burials organization, Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, is planning to open a dispute proceeding under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, in which a committee would review the case, said hui member Edward Halealoha Ayau.
Ayau listed the items, all part of the original group that the David Forbes expedition collected from a burial cave more than a century ago:
• A 27-inch tall wooden female figure, decorated with shell inlay eyes and human hair. Its companion piece, a very similar figure, is one of 83 Forbes objects that Hui Malama reburied in the cave four years ago after a very controversial loan arrangement with Bishop Museum.
• A cutting tool that incorporates a shark tooth and human bones.
• A rock oyster pendant.
• A konane game board.
• A gourd.
Cindy Orlando, superintendent of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, said her office has been preparing a notice of repatriation to publish even without the nudge from the hui. "The park's position is we don't need to have a special request to follow the spirit and intent of the law," she said. "Nobody has to trigger that through a dispute or appeal."
Ayau said the Forbes documents show the objects' position in the cave, near the burial remains, as evidence that they are funerary objects that should be repatriated.
Orlando declined to comment on the specifics of the dispute until she sees a written letter, which Ayau said is still under review by hui leaders.
Both the committee and the target of the dispute are housed within the park service, the agency that supervises both the NAGPRA law and the Big Island volcanoes park.
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
